In Focus | Syria

Syria puts public sector cost due to war at $15b

Attacks on central and northern cities killed 6 people on Sunday

AP

Published: 14:25 June 30, 2013

Amman, Jordan: Government attacks on central and northern cities in Syria killed six people on Sunday, activists said, as the government announced that two years of conflict has cost the public sector $15 billion (Dh55 billion).

President Bashar Al Assad’s forces have been on the offensive in the central city of Homs, reclaiming some of the territory they lost to the rebels since the uprising began.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian army warplanes pounded the old quarters of Homs, killing one woman and two children.

Further north, in the suburbs of Idlib, three other civilians, including one woman and one child, were killed in army clashes with the rebels, the Observatory added.

A city of about one million, Homs has been a flashpoint since the early days of the uprising, and many residents have sided with the rebels.

It is Syria’s third largest city and capital of its largest province, which carries the same name and stretches from the Lebanese border to the frontier with Jordan and Iraq.